Evi Vine - Sparkling - Hayes & Y - Saint Clair
Ethereal alt-rock outfit Evi Vine presents 'Sabbath', a sweet and heavy preview of their long-awaited long-play 'Black Light White Dark', due out in early 2019 on vinyl and CD, as well as digitally. This powerhouse track features Evi Vine's gossamer vocals and precise orchestration, cleverly woven together with bass guitar by Simon Gallup of The Cure and guitar by Peter Yates of Fields of the Nephilim.
Produced by Dave Izumi (Nordic Giants, Ed Harcourt, Magic Numbers) and mixed by Phill Brown (Talk Talk, Jimmy Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, John Martyn, Robert Palmer), this album also features contributions from several other celebrated artists. Apart from Simon Gallup (The Cure), this album also involves Martyn Barker (Shriekback, Billy Bragg, Marianne Faithfull, Goldfrapp), Peter Yates (Fields of the Nephilim), and Geraldine Swayne (Faust).
As a group, Evi Vine is joined by Steven Hill, Matt Tye and David 'GB' Smith. Their music explores the dark elemental nature of the human heart, as well as environmental and post-apocalyptic themes. Evi Vine’s sound is both sublime and haunting. Creating a unique and uncompromising atmosphere, the effect is reverential, physical music, evoking a rare experience that is beautiful, sparse and deeply intimate.
“I know a lot of people are being shaped by experiences in our lives, ghosts of childhood, self-destructive pain and sorrow, all our personal struggles, doubt, and change. I can feel the earth dying and it makes me so sad. We write reflective songs about the circular patterns of man, and reflecting beauty and violence in the world,” says Evi Vine.
“We recorded live for the first time, which meant we were perhaps able to express the energy in the room together, vibing off one another and experimenting with new sounds, in a new space. Writing in the room was a new experience for us. Its the first time we’ve gone in with no finished songs. We had a few ideas and riffs but took the time to let them breath and worked on them until we felt we had captured a special moment. After producing two albums essentially at home, this feels like a re-birth for the band.” WEBSITE.
'Sabbath' opens with a wall of sound as fuzzy guitars and a powerful rhythm compete with each other. The music drops the energy and some atmospheric vocals enter the piece, but not for long as the music powers up again on this epic roller-coaster of an alt rock ride.
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From the opening electronic bass hook, moving on to the epic chorus, and ending with the mesmerizing new wave ending, Sparkling emphasize their ability to write catchy and mature pop tunes set in a cool and powerful production.
The single is from their forthcoming album Felonious (coming in 2019). It’s a song about letting go of old demons - and most of all a song about the knots and beauty of life.
While working on the album the last couple of years, Sparkling have teamed up with renowned film festival CPH:PIX who has used excerpts from the duo’s cinematic pop music in the festival trailers screening in movie theaters all over Copenhagen.
They have toured intensively in Denmark incl. SPOT and Skanderborg Festivals, been artist of the week on Hitquarters.com, and collaborated with producer/remixer Dave ‘Rave’ Ogilvie (Bowie, N:I:N...).
On the forthcoming album, Sparkling have made new allied from the sparkling (pun intended) Copenhagen music scene. Besides Oliver Hoiness and Peter Buch, there are musical contributions from jazz saxophonist Jesper Løvdal, guitarist Anders Mathiasen (Murder, Vessel, etc.), guitarist David Rosenkilde, pianist Steen Rasmussen, and Benjamin Vinding on berimbau. FACEBOOK.
The vocals are distinctive and engaging on 'Say Goodbye to the Ragged Tiger' and when the chorus kicks in they are gorgeous. A refined electro pop song that is beautifully layered, this is extremely catchy.
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Hayes & Y have returned with a brand new single, 'Blue'. It follows recent track 'Always So Simple, Always So Cold' which was featured on Spotify's UK Viral Top 50 chart. Already picking up plays at BBC Introducing and BBC 6 Music, the group adds a little more insight into their latest creation;
"Blue is the first in a series of songs we've named after colours. It is about loneliness, insanity and imaginary friends. "Blue" is a song about longing, masquerading as a dance track. The most ambitious work we've done so far, challenging ourselves and hopefully, our audience."
With band members that hail from as far afield as Bulgaria and Finland before settling in Manchester, Hayes & Y collect their influences to create their very own sound. Their strong chemistry and rich musicality are manifest in their effortlessly sleek, immediate and addictive brand of pop - which has been compared to the likes of Jungle and Nile Rogers - with CLASH going on to comment on their "infectious funky yacht pop, their bleached out sound recalls everyone from Jungle to Kool & The Gang. 'Blue' will only serve to increase the hype around the quartet, an irresistible new single from the group." TWITTER.
Exuding style and sophistication 'Blue' refuses to sit in any one genre, as moments of funk, hints of stylish pop and a slick dance groove, come together and deliver a fresh, hook laden song.
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Saint Clair is today sharing the live video for recent single ‘I’ll Stay’, directed by her sister, Tamsin Topolski. The new live clip trails the five-track EP, ‘D2’ - out now via her own Dearly Beloved imprint which takes its logo from a drawing sketched by her grandfather, the artist Feliks Topolski.
“‘I’ll Stay’ is a particularly dark, emotional song that I was keen to reimagine with my live band, especially with the addition of string players,” explains Saint Clair, “I enlisted the help of my sister Tam as director who has an amazing eye and knew exactly how to encapsulate the epic yet intimate nature of the song.” Speaking about the live video, director Tamsin says: “We wanted to expose and highlight the raw emotion at the core of this live version of the song. We wanted the music and the visual movements to build cohesively to a climax, moving out of darkness into hope and finally relief.”
Saint Clair - named after her mother’s Scottish ancestry - is the alias of French-speaking North Londoner Emma Topolski. The first in a family of painters, actors and journalists to pursue music, her professional trajectory began as a gigging jazz singer, as she puts it, “Playing three or four times a week, getting ignored in the corner of a five-star hotel”. A testing stint, it now more than repays itself in Saint Clair’s easy integration of a love for old standards, soul (Stevie Wonder) and classic rock (The Beatles), with her affinity for the electronica-rooted modern soul of the likes of Son Lux and James Blake.
‘D2 follows Saint Clair’s 2017 debut EP ‘D1’, and arrives alongside wilder collaborative projects which have taken her on the road as a backing vocalist for long-time friend Laura Marling (in whose Reversal Of The Muse project she also participated, alongside HAIM, Dolly Parton and Marika Hackman), and seen her sing BVs for Ghostpoet and Dua Lipa. Emma is also bassist and singer for infectious London 4-piece Childcare. FACEBOOK.
The new live version of 'I'll Stay' is beautifully performed. With a sparsely furnished room and light flooding into through the windows, the video puts the focus on the performers who are engrossed in this tender and passionate song, where quality and atmosphere smoothly rub shoulders.
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